My birth story

Alright... so the week before last I had a growth scan to see how our little man was doing. He measured in the 4th percentile, so my doctor's office referred me to MFM to get an ultrasound to check the blood flow in the umbilical cord. MFM couldn't fit me in until a week later (I would have been almost 40 weeks at that point), so they suggested I just get induced at 39 weeks. My doctor agreed as did I if he was really going to be that small, I wanted him to have the medical attention he needed as soon as possible. We scheduled my induction for Jan 25th.

Over the weekend I had a few contractions, but not even close enough to time so I didn't think anything about it. On Monday morning we were admitted to L&D at my hospital. I'm hooked up to monitors for a non-stress test. The nurse checks to see how far I'm dilated to just get a baseline, and lo and behold I'm already 7 cm dilated and 100% effaced. I had no idea, didn't feel a thing! Over the next two hours they see I'm having tons of contractions, but I still am not feeling anything, so they give me some pitocin and my OB tries to break my water to get things moving. Butch's head was so low they weren't sure if the bag didn't break, or if it did and his head was just blocking the gush. So they did a Foley bulb which for sure broke it. 

There was a scheduled c-section that was about to start and I was told if I wanted an epidural I would need to decide soon because there was only one anesthesiologist available that day. I opted to wait because I still want feeling anything.

Flash forward maybe an hour, I start to have back labor and it's painful. It was too late at that point to get the epi, so they have me some local pain killers which didn't do anything. In between contractions I sat on an exercise ball, and during contractions I stood and leaned against a table. After about 10 minutes of that, they made me lay down on my left side because the baby's heart beat was dipping too low, and laying in that position was the only way to regulate it. My OB has left at some point, so he was on his way back while I was going through all this. I was put on oxygen as a precaution and the other doctor who was on staff at the time was having me breathe through the contractions, but they decided I needed to start pushing because the baby was looking to be in distress the longer they waited. My ob arrived right as I was starting to push.

I pushed for about 15 minutes and at 2:02pm on Monday, Jan. 25th, we welcomed Douglas Jay! 5lb 14 oz (2 oz more than the estimated weight from the last ultrasound) and 18.5" long.

And just because it's my new favorite picture: